FRINGE FESTIVAL: Play takes humorous look at inner workings of government

Fiona Kirkpatrick Parsons, as Sophia Smart, telling Rob McIntyre, as Richard Clod, that she is going to be watching him in a scene from Department of Common Sense. (Contributed)

Atlantic Fringe Festival 2013Department of Common Sense

I’m a sucker for humorous bureaucratic nightmares, probably due to reading the military satire Catch 22 and watching Terry Gilliam's dystopian feature Brazil at an early age. So Ryan Van Horne’s homegrown comedy Department of Common Sense seemed to be right up my alley.

Directed by Theatre Arts Guild veteran Nick Jupp, the 45-minute play successfully scratches that niche itch, with a look at the inner workings of government where obsession with minutiae and an inability to face facts or follow logic either slow the wheels of progress or grind the gears altogether.

We start with heroine number one, Adele Courage (Lianne Perry), associate deputy minister for the Ministry of Persuasion, where she’s used to covering up other people’s mistakes with the help of her slightly clueless minister Frank Walker (Mark Adam). A simple quest for a new energy efficient lightbulb for her office leads Courage to cross paths with the officious procurement officer Richard Clod (Rob McIntyre), who proceeds to confound her request with spools of red tape.

To the rescue comes Sophia Smart (Fiona Kirkpatrick Parsons) from the newly created Department of Common Sense, able to leap over a stack of arcane regulations in a single bound, and clearly a fantasy creation for former government employee Van Horne.

Department of Common Sense played to a packed house in its first performance on Saturday, and it’s not hard to see why. It mixes a vintage screwball comedy flavour with a knowing nod to modern politics, and its characters are sharply drawn, especially the female leads who exude confidence, and pride in their ability to get around their so-called superiors. McIntyre is a capital fusspot as the persnickety Clod, and Adam’s minister Walker is as smart as he needs to be, as long as the lads down at the legion don’t give him any grief.

Department of Common Sense runs at DANSpace Sunday at 9:30 p.m., Monday at 7 p.m., Thursday at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 9:15 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 8 at 5 p.m.